ETHICS/PREFINAL-ARISTOTLE ETHICS

• At least two (2) of Aristotle's works specifically concern morality, the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean

  Ethics.
• Self-realizationism


  Aristotle's ethical system where someone acts in line with their nature or end ('telos') and thus realizes their full potential, they do moral and will be happy
• Three general descriptions, which are interrelated, can be used to depict Aristotle's ethics
• First, his ethical system may be termed "self-realizationism"
• In his philosophy, when someone acts in line with his nature or end ('telos') and thus realizes his full potential, he does moral and will be happy
• Eudaimonistic


  Focuses on happiness (eudaimonia), or the good for man, and how to obtain it
• Aretoic


  Virtue-based moral philosophy, interested in what we should be, the character or the sort of person we should struggle to become
• Telos


  An end or purpose
• Aristotle believed that the essence or essential nature of beings, including humans, lay not at their cause (or beginning) but at their end ("telos")
• Self-realization


  The ultimate human goal, achieved by functioning or living consistently with human nature
• Achieving self-realization


  Produces happiness
• Inability to realize self-realization


  Leads to sadness, frustration, and ultimately to poor life
• Eudaimonia


  Happiness, the human good
• Virtue


  Moral and intellectual excellences, attained through habitual practice
• Acting in line with virtues is acting in accordance with reason
• The function of human being consists in activities which manifest the best states of his rational aspect, that is the virtues
• But since only a few have studied the former, the Nicomachean Ethics has been regarded as the Ethics of Aristotle since the beginning of the Christian era.